My house is clean. Clean, I tell you, clean! I went all vigilante on the messiness and dirt and rallied the troops together! Yeah, basically I made the whole family clean the entire house and there was --unfortunately, sadly, mortifyingly (is that a word?) --a lot of yelling on my part. But the house hasn't been this clean in months, people. Months! Just don't ask me about the unpacked office. Stop! I said don't ask me!
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BYU won. Badly. Is it possible to win badly? Yes, yes it is. It's called --"holy crap, we are so glad we weren't playing a better team!" But at least they won. And it was a beautiful day and loads of fun; BYU games are always loads of fun in my book.
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I won something! I won something!
James Dashner, a great author and hilarious blogger has been having a blogging birthday bash give-a-way week. On Day #5, I won! What did I win? Well, dear reader, I won a signed Advanced Released Copy (ARC) of Dashner's next book, The Hunt for Dark Infinity (Book 2 of The 13th Reality). Ironic part? I received an ARC of The Journal of Curious Letters (Book 1 of The 13th Reality) at the BYU WIFYR conference back in June (2008). How cool is that?!
The only sad part in all of this is that I didn't let you in on the give-a-way week, dear reader. Why is that? I honestly have no idea! I'm not very good about spreading the word on contests and give-a-ways, but I'll do my best in the future to let you in on them, okay? You forgive me? Okay, good.
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If you've been living under a rock, Sarah Palin is McCain's VP candidate. I've always disliked Obama, but my teeth would just grit thinking about voting for McCain. With Palin as his running mate? I think I just might be able to vote Republican without ripping out my hair. I've done some Palin research, and I'm impressed. Hooray!
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Brandon showed me this video. Holy. Cow. I wasn't sure if I should be grossed out or totally impressed. Sure puts a whole new spin on the Starburst wrapper, now, doesn't it? Ha!
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So, a lot of people have talked about how much they either LOVE Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Books (specifically Breaking Dawn, of course) or how much they HATE Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Books.
I wasn't a huge fan of Breaking Dawn, but I haven't liked all the crud that's been flung Stephenie's way. Not fair, really, considering all the hard work she's obviously put forth to finish the saga. I feel people have been unfair in their criticisms. Maybe this is because I can't imagine how hard and amazing and difficult and thrilling it would be to have a book published, let alone five (she wrote The Host, too). And then to have everyone rip it to shreds because they don't like the name you pick for the baby?
You know, this is the one area that scares me the most about being a writer --it's not so much finally getting my novel (or 12) finished (although that's proving to be very difficult in and of itself), but having thick enough skin to be criticised to the point of insanity. How could I take the humiliation and/or rejection? Would I cry myself to sleep every night if there were doznes of blog posts dedicated to putting me in my place? Would I hide out in my bedroom if a book didn't sell? What if my family hates my writing? It's so scary, this rejection gig. But I guess I've already been rejected by three separate publishing companies (true story), so what's a rejection from a reader when an editor finally believes in me? Hot dog! Someday, an editor might believe in me! Wouldn't that be fan-diddily-dandy. I would scream like a little girl and dance around with joy. Joy, joy, joy!
Anyway...
Shannon Hale (another good author) has a little something to say about readership and criticism of authors/authorship/author-like-people. Go read it. It's good! Then come and tell me what you think. Or just tell Shannon what you think. My favorite line from her post is this:
You need to allow the author to tell the story she's trying to tell. It may not be a good story, it may not be your kind of story, but if you don't try to play along, you're not giving the story a chance. And in the end you might not like it--there are an infinite number of reasons why this might be. But the author didn't fail you--the author just wrote a story that didn't click with your internal reader at this point in your life. You are responsible for half of that story. So you go find the next book, the next author that works for you, and as a team, you and the author tell a new story together.
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Have a great Labor Day tomorrow, dear reader. We might be hiking if it doesn't rain. Wish us luck!
8 comments:
Palin ROCKS! I love her. LOVE her. I was SOOOO excited for the announcement. Who woulda thunk I'd be excited to vote for McCain, but I am!
Do I get "you're so cool" points if I say I'm friends with James and even helped with some of his work? :D
On Shannon Hale's post, I agree to a point. If Meyer had put the same amount of work in BD as she did the others, I don't think she'd have so much hate mail over it. But she didn't. It was rushed.
Even SM has said she wishes she would have been edited more on it and hadn't put out two books in one year.
You've got thousands of diehard Twilight fans who are upset with book 4. To me that says the author broke her contract with her readers. They were willing and eager to love the book. They WANTED to love it. They kept their end of the bargain (using Hale's term), but she didn't deliver on what she'd built up and promised to give them over her three-book saga.
Shannon and Stephenie are also friends. :)
Yah, that movie is cool/crazy/weird!
I think I might be able to handle the criticism with millions of $$$$$ rollin in! Obviously more people like it than not...and negative criticism just usually generates more interest. I like BD, didn't love it, didn't think it appropriate for teen girls to read (and think about over and over and over again). I didn't care for the baby's name, but that's not why I didn't love it.
Go Palin--I'm with you....now I can vote for McCain without feeling ill.
Oh and CONGRATS on the clean house...i wish daily my whole house could be clean all at once!
I don't know much about Palin. I'll have to read up a little about her.
And you mentioned the EISF below. I still think about it every year at Labor Day, too! I grew up with the parade going right by our house and have sooooo many memories from fair week. I miss it!
Way to go on getting your house all clean! Very good. Also, congrats on winning!
I also like Palin from what I have read so far. I think that McCain made a good choice.
As for Meyer...I think that she made a couple of mistakes. I heard that she realized after book 3 that her fans were not teens as much as mothers in their 20's & 30's so she aimed BD at those women and in my opinion, you CAN'T do that mid-series. I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't aimed at teens. I'm off to read Hale's column.
Holy cow, I LOVE Sarah Palin!!! I am SO excited about her! She is a phenomenal woman! Yeah, I was like you... not very sure about McCain, but the Saddleback Presidential Forum got me starting to like him (at least I was very impressed with him during that Forum) and having learned about Palin and watching her speeches, I'm so excited about McCain-Palin! Woohooo!!!
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